


Finding Home

by AmandaRex



Series: By Design Universe [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Game Industry, F/M, FitzSimmons - Freeform, Game Designer AU, Moving In Together, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-07-11 07:01:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7034803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmandaRex/pseuds/AmandaRex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fitz leads Jemma around their apartment shortly after they move in together, trying to have a discussion about what furniture they should keep and what they should get rid of. Jemma has other ideas about how to spend their time. (Takes place in the By Design universe, but it will likely make perfect sense to you even if you haven't read By Design.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finding Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wibbelkind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wibbelkind/gifts).



> Amazing beta job by [lettertoelise](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lettertoelise/pseuds/lettertoelise). Thank you for the sage advice, fun, and general frivolity. I live for our simultaneous edits in Google Docs. Thank you!

"Fitz, we really don't have to do this," Jemma said, following him through his— _their_ , she reminded herself—apartment.

"Did you see the length of that 'must haves' list we brainstormed last night? House hunting will take us an age," Fitz said, coming to a stop in his— _their_ , she reminded herself _again_ —bedroom. "You shouldn't have to wait to—"

"Fitz, I'm completely at peace with my furniture remaining in storage until we have more room," she told him, interrupting before he could give his whole speech on the matter again. "I've told you. I'm fine." 

Fitz was holding his clipboard in front of him, so she snuggled up to his side and threw her arms around his neck, leaning forward and tilting her head to put her face between him and the papers he was studying.

"Jemma," he muttered, closing his eyes. When he re-opened them, the businesslike look that had been there before was replaced with one she'd come to label 'exasperated yet affectionate'. She grinned back at him, noticing how he let the clipboard drop to the side to give her his full attention.

"Can't you think of anything else you'd like to do right now?" she asked him, letting her eyes drift to the side to light briefly on the bed before she looked back at him. It was difficult not to let the feeling of triumph show on her face as she watched his eyes darken and felt his arm curl around her waist to pull their bodies closer together.

"It isn't a matter of what I'd _rather_ be doing," he began, though his voice dropped into strained raspiness as his eyes darted around her face, "but if we don't prioritize making you feel more at home—"

"—I do feel at home here, Fitz," she countered.

He seemed troubled, suddenly studying the floor instead of her. "You keep calling it my apartment, or my place," he said, after a moment's hesitation, tripping over the first few words. "You haven't called it 'home' or 'our apartment', not even after the closing on your townhouse." He blinked at her, pulling his head back a little as though he had to get some distance to really study her reaction, and she realized this must have been bothering him for weeks.

"Fitz," she began, but she couldn't think of a way to finish after she took in the way his expression faltered. She could see the wheels turning in his mind as he tried to think of a way to turn it all into a joke, to minimize his own feelings on something that seemed truly important to him.

"It isn't—I'm turning it into something that makes it seem bigger than it is, I'm sure—"

She shifted a little in his arms until they were facing each other, and cupped his cheeks in both hands as she pulled him down for a kiss, trying to interrupt his thought process. The clipboard dropped to the ground and she could feel his palms ghosting over her lower back, his open hands gentle in a way that almost felt reverent, but also a little like he was afraid to hold her too tightly.

He pulled away after a moment and she pursued, capturing his mouth again as she sunk her hands into his hair. Images flickered through her mind—taunting each other over a pool table, their first wonderful-yet-awkward embrace by her whiteboards as they solved their first big problem together, the feel of Fitz's hand in hers the day of their museum not-date. She tried to pour how she felt about him into the kiss, willing him to understand, but she read something quite different in return. 

While he returned every kiss, every gesture, and leaned into every twitch of her fingers, they were all reactions. His arms were still loose around her, and the warmth of his palms on the small of her back was too gentle. It was as though he was expecting her to disappear and he couldn't bear the idea of feeling her slipping out of his grasp.

She stopped, turning her head to nuzzle her cheek against his as they floated together for a moment, and she tried to puzzle out how to convince him she wasn't going to leave. Perhaps she hadn't been showing him explicitly enough what he meant to her, or how much happier she was now that she'd moved here to start a new life with him.

"I've been silly, Fitz," she whispered into his skin, feeling the bite of his scruff on her lips as she spoke. "I knew you were quite at home here before I came barrelling into your life, and I wanted to tread lightly while we adjusted to living together." 

She let her hands drift down, linking them behind his neck as she leaned into him. He stiffened in her arms and she tried not to react, not wanting him to feel defensive and close himself off. 

"I don't know if you've noticed," she continued, "but I have an unfortunate tendency to take charge."

He choked briefly before he covered it with a cough, and she did him the favor of pretending not to notice. "You?" Fitz asked, and she could hear him trying not to laugh.

"When you offered to let me stay here with you while I sorted out my living arrangements in Boston, I told myself I had to respect that this has been _your_ space, and that you appeared to be perfectly happy with things like the placement of the furniture, the organization of your kitchen cabinets, the sorting of the laundry, and your vacuuming pattern."

"My..." he sputtered, letting out a surprised laugh, "...what on earth is a vacuuming pattern?"

"It's neither here nor there, at least at the moment," she said, but she made a mental note to talk to him about it after they found a house they wanted to buy together. "That wasn't my point. What I was trying to tell you was that I've been quite careful not to step on your toes, Fitz." She forced herself to pull back and look him straight in the eyes, though she knew the next words out of her mouth would be quite difficult to say. "I didn't want you to regret inviting me to stay with you."

"Jemma," he whispered, his forehead furrowing as the tenderness returned to his eyes. "I couldn't regret that. Move all the furniture if you like, and I don't care if I don't know where a single thing is in the bloody kitchen cabinets. I want you here."

"I suppose I was a bit afraid," she admitted. "We've moved so quickly. If you were to change your mind, if you needed to slow down, I didn't want you to feel you couldn't tell me because we'd tied ourselves to each other so completely. I was hanging onto a bit of caution, perhaps to balance out this leap of faith we've taken together."

"Jemma..." he said, looking troubled. " _You_ don't regret this huge change you've made, do y—"

"—No," she broke in, not allowing him to finish. "I'm exactly where I'd like to be. I'm home. If that's all right with you."

"It's more than all right," he breathed. "It's all that I want."

She quirked an eyebrow, deciding they were ready to lighten the mood a bit. "That's not what your checklist said when we were arguing last night about ideal housing layouts and necessary amenities."

He rolled his eyes as she giggled. "You've caught me. All I want is good lighting," he said, holding up his hand and ticking off the items on his fingers, "an open floor plan," he added, raising a second finger, "and for you to be at home wherever we are."

"So," she began, looking back at the bed and drawing a finger up his chest. "Now that this is settled, we can—" 

She broke off abruptly when he bent down to retrieve the clipboard, frowning at the impossibility of a man who could miss the way she was trying to throw herself at him.

"I still think we should pull some of your things out of storage, Jemma. If for no other reason," he continued, before she could interrupt him, "we can start to decide now what we'll keep and what we'll get rid of and it'll make our eventual move into our new place a bit easier."

Jemma sighed, looking wistfully at the bed one last time before she forced herself to make the shift into more practical thought. "We should keep everything in this bedroom," she announced, earning a confused look from Fitz.

"I would have thought you'd like to have yours," he said, turning in place to look around the room as he scratched the back of his neck.

"I hate my bedroom furniture," she confessed. "Sleep wasn't always easy to come by, the past few years," she added, trying to make the words sound lighter than they were. "I think I'd rather keep what's in here," she gestured around the room, "and what was in my guest bedroom, if we have room for it."

Fitz reached down and took her hand, squeezing it a little before he caressed her palm with his thumb. "We're sure to have room for it. Having a room for Daisy to stay in when she visits was rather high on both of our 'must have' lists, wasn't it?"

"It is," she agreed, smiling at him as she absorbed how talking about their future—even the little things—seemed to energize him.

"So that's this room done, then?" He let her hand go to scratch some notes on the clipboard in his unreadable handwriting, crossing off a few items and circling others before looking back at her.

"Let's do one more room today. We can revisit the rest after you get home from your lecture and lab tomorrow," she suggested, and when he grinned back, she realized that displaying the slightest commitment to his plan had made him happy.

"C'mon," he grabbed her hand again, pulling her out of the room and through the hallway, then into the office next door. 

Jemma ran her fingers over the top of the desk he'd made for her, a thick-ish slab of wood Fitz had told her about sanding down and staining himself when she'd indulged her curiosity and asked him about it a few weeks before.

"Once we clear the desk and the whiteboards out of here, it'll open up that wall and give us space to bring in quite a few things of yours," he said, his back turned to her as he continued to look around the room. 

"What do you mean, 'clear out the desk'? Where is the desk going?"

"Well, I might be able to use the pieces in something else, especially if we find a new place with a backyard and a shed I can use to store raw materials like these. Once I tear this out we can put whatever's salvageable in the storage unit, after we retrieve some of your things and make some room." He turned back to her, apparently noticing the horrified look on her face for the first time. "Jemma...what's wrong?"

"You...you can't...please don't touch this." She put herself between him and the desk, feeling ridiculously like it was necessary to mount some sort of physical defense to protect it.

"I threw that together in two days, Jemma, and I never intended it to be permanent. If there are things you like about it in particular, you should tell me, because I'm drawing up plans on my sketchpad for something more permanent for you. It's still a draft because we don't know the dimensions of our new workroom yet, but I can incorporate anything—"

Jemma bit her lip, trying to hold back tears. She knew she was overreacting to Fitz's innocent rambling about his plans for her new desk, but as she looked down at the lacquered surface under her hands, she knew she had to stop him. "I can't let you touch this. Please don't destroy it."

"Jemma..." he said through a laugh, though his expression changed after he took in how upset she was. "I didn't think...you can't possibly..." he trailed off, putting his hand over hers where she was protecting the desk from his demolition plans.

"When I came here for us to begin testing our game, I was so afraid you regretted ever agreeing to the project. You seemed so uncomfortable, and we'd been avoiding direct communication. I was nervous, seeing you again, and one of the first things you showed me was _this desk_ ," she said, running her free hand over the top again for emphasis. "You made this for me. You transformed an entire room of your apartment to make a place where I'd be more comfortable working. You mounted whiteboards and bought office supplies."

He nodded at her, catching her cheek in the palm of his hand. "You're right. It was for you."

"If you touch one hair on the head of this desk—" she began, giving him a menacing look when he drew breath to comment on what she was saying. "—and I know the desk has neither a head nor hair, Fitz, I'm a Biochemist, after all—I'll be inconsolable."

"Knowing that, I'd defend this desk with my life," he pledged, leaning in for a kiss she was happy to return. "But now that's settled," he continued, pulling back just a little, still so close to her that she couldn't quite get her eyes to focus, "we can surely agree the futon should go. It doesn't even fit there."

"Well..." she said, drawing out the L until he sighed and shaded his eyes with his hand. "Do you remember the night we were going over those test reports, and you came in and sat next to me?" 

"I suppose we did?" he said, though he sounded uncertain.

"You came in here during one of the last testing nights and I thought you were about to help me up, but you sat down next to me instead. _Right_ next to me, Fitz," she said, flopping onto the futon and patting the space next to her. 

"Jemma, this thing is a beaten-up holdover from my college apartment, and it doesn't fit anywhere. It'll stick out like a sore thumb among all the tasteful things you own, and we don't need it. As great as it is to see you getting sentimental over these inanimate objects, I think..." he stopped, their eyes meeting as she reached up to pull him to her. He sighed and sat down, but he was too far away, so she tugged him closer. 

"Yes, that's more like it." She snuggled up to his side, looping her arm over his waist as she rested her head on his chest. "You were right up against me," she whispered, and he slipped his arm behind her, pulling her even closer, "and I could feel the heat of your thigh against mine."

His chest moved under her cheek as he gulped, his fingers slipping under the hem of her shirt to rub along her bare skin, and she arched her back to encourage him.

"You weren't thinking salacious thoughts about me that night, were you, Jemma?" His voice had dropped an octave and the words were so quiet she almost hadn't heard him. She shivered in his arms, closing her eyes as his lips brushed across her forehead.

Taking a deep breath, she shifted, swinging her leg over his lap until she was straddling him. With her arms linked around his neck, she leaned forward to whisper in his ear, letting her mouth drag across his earlobe before she spoke.

"Do you want to know what I was thinking then, Fitz?" She pulled away, locking her eyes on his, and then she grabbed her shirt by the hem and pulled it over her head. "Or would you like to know what I'm thinking now?"

He surged forward, bypassing words entirely to answer her question with a searing kiss. Holding her steady as she arched against him, his hands were strong on her back. She drew in a hissed breath when his mouth wandered downward, biting her neck with enough force that it pulled a tortured moan from deep in her throat.

As his deft fingers made quick work of the clasp on the back of her bra, he shifted their weight to the side until she was on her back with him on top of her, the pressure of his hips pushing into hers forcing her eyes shut with the absolute perfection of it.

Her last rational thought before she was overwhelmed with the sensations of him against her and around her was a memory of the breathless hope he might think of her as something more than a design partner, a wish she'd held onto the last time they'd sat on this futon together. Every brush of his hands and lips felt like a message back through time to their previous selves, begging them to be brave and take the leap of faith, to trust how perfect things could be if they could summon the courage to confess their feelings to each other.

* * *

Later, as their limbs tangled together in a languid mess, the only thing she could focus on was Fitz and the way his finger was lazily tracing a random pattern on her naked back. As she came back to herself, she realized he was spelling out "I love you" over and over, and she pulled him tighter against her. 

After a long, comfortable silence, he pulled his head up from where he'd pillowed it against her shoulder to whisper in her ear, his breath ticklish against her skin.

"We're _never_ ," he said, pausing for a moment to nuzzle his nose behind her ear, "getting rid of this futon."


End file.
